A Moment in Time 1: Anniversary
by Lifelover1989
Summary: The first one shot in a series. Theme; anniversary. Tenten discovers why Sakura comes to Suna a lot and why the leaf's favorite pink haired medic hates getting her boyfriend's warrior face pain on her neck. Kankuro x Sakura plus more pairings inside R & R


**A Moment in Time #1: Anniversary **

Pairings: Kankuro x Sakura and Gaara x Matsuri and Shikamaru x Temari

Theme: Anniversary

When: Right before Team Kakashi and Team Gai left Suna to report back to the Hokage

To say that Sakura Haruno didn't care about her friends was like saying Naruto didn't like Ramen, (so many things wrong with that accusation.) Many elders and dignitaries in the hidden villages of Leaf and Sand still thought that caring and kindness were a curse and/or weakness. However, everybody and anybody who knew the pink-haired medical ninja knew it to be a blessing.

Currently, Sakura was on top of the Kazekage's tower, her mind still analyzing Lady Chiyo's action when she felt strong arms wrapping themselves around her midsection and a head rest on her own cranium. The kunoichi didn't need the byukagan or Kiba's sense of smell to tell her that her boyfriend was currently holding her. Sakura looked at him and he gave her a smile; a true genuine smile and not his famous smirk that he almost always seemed to give her. She gave her boyfriend a half smile and laid her cheek on his chest.

Kankuro knew that Lady Chiyo's death affected Sakura a lot more than almost everybody else in the hidden Sand Village. So, Kankuro did the only thing that he knew would cheer her up. He teased, "You need to report back to Lady Hokage you say. You need to take care of your own village you say. Well, do you know what I say? I say you're just trying to avoid me. What kind of girl would want to avoid his boyfriend?" Sakura chuckled, her face was now being held in Kankuro's hands. Both shinobi had grins plastered on their face, less than a second passed and Kankuro was crushing Sakura's lips in a hungry kiss. His tongue licked her teeth, asking permission to enter and Sakura took that chance to break off the kiss,

"As much as I would love to kiss you senseless right now, I probably should be finding my teammates and heading out. The medic started to move away when the puppet master tugged on her arm and pulled her towards him. Kankuro's arms wrapped around Sakura's midsection once again, but this time he had his head tiled with his famous smirk. Sakura growled, "Kankuro! I'm serious! Ohh no no no no no no no no no; I know that look. Don't even try it!" But it was too late; the puppeteer was attacking his lover's neck. He kissed in the one spot that he knew that drove her absolutely insane. When Sakura let out an involuntary moan, she felt her boyfriend smile against her. She knew what that meant. The kunoichi tried not to make more noise as he started to bite on her flesh. "K-k-kan-." The medic couldn't finish saying her lover's name because said lover's hands found its way under her shirt.

"Sorry to interrupt Sakura but we need to get going." Sakura and Kankuro's heads snapped up to see a smirking Neji and a slightly disturbed Tenten.

Neji's Point of View

The Kazekage's brother rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. Sakura blushed and they started walking towards where Kakashi and Gai-sensei were. Kankuro tugged on Sakura's hand again, they came to a halt.

Kankuro rubbed his neck sheepishly again and said, "Happy anniversary hime." Sakura smiled at him and squeezed his hand. They didn't move and the puppet master added something in one of the wind country's indigenous languages and Sakura seemed to understand. She answered back and the puppet master's smile gradually faltered.

Kankuro's eyes had a glint of fear and worry, "Promise me Sakura."

Sakura answered, "I can't promise you that." Both shinobi held a staring contest. A few minutes passed and Kankuro sighed.

"Write the second you get back or else-"

Sakura interrupted, "Then you'll come to Konoha yourself, use your black ant puppet to capture me, bring me back to Suna, and use your chakra strings to tie me to your bed. I know the drill Kankuro." Before anyone could say anything else, a loud, obnoxious voice rang through the air.

"SAKURA! IT'S TIME TO GO! SAKURA!" the second the sand-shinobi heard the loud blond's voice, he let go of her wrist. Once Naruto noticed that it got really quiet once he got there and everybody was staring at him. "What? Is there something on my face?"

Kankuro smirked, "Hey Naruto!" Naruto switched his eyes from Sakura to the middle sand sibling. "Next time try not to get shown up, ok?"

"Says the puppet master who got his ass handed to him and had to be saved by a girl." A blind man could have seen that Naruto cringed once he muttered the word 'girl'. Both Tenten and Sakura gave him a glare that would put Lady Tsunade to shame.

Normal Point of View

Three days later, Sakura, true to her word and agreement with her lover, wrote a letter to Kankuro and sent it that day. She tried not to be annoyed by the fact that the only real time she got to spend with said boyfriend was the night before they left the hidden sand village to rescue Gaara. Sakura's disappointment/annoyance by the sound of banding on her door. Slowly, she dragged towards the door, apparently the person doing the banding had little to no patience. The medic was at least two feet from the door when it swung open to see a pissed off Tenten and a calm Neji and Shikamaru.

Tenten started yelling, "Since when are you and puppet boy a thing? He's so so so so so . . . ." Sakura noticing that her fellow kunoichi couldn't finish her sentence, she decided to finish it for her.

She grinned, "Hot? Dangerous? Sweet? Se-?"

"You dare say _**sexy**_" Tenten cringed at that word "and I will tie you up and leave you here until the brain washing that stupid sand boy did to you is gone." By this time, the pink-haired medic had her hands over her mouth and was trying her best not to burst out laughing. However, it was all in vain and the second Tenten stopped taking, was the second Sakura burst out laughing. The sound of shrieking laughter echoed through every room of the Haruno compound. After a good three of four minutes, the laughter finally died down.

"Tenten, am I not allowed to date a cute guy?" Sakura asked with a smirk

Tenten rolled her eyes, "Kankuro is not _cute_." Sakura raised her eyebrows, silently asking to elaborate. "He may be dangerous and talented with the use of puppetry, but I wouldn't go so far to say he's _cute_."

"You may be right; Kankuro is most definitely not cute. He's _**hot**_." Sakura's smiled died down a little. "Tenten, you have to promise me that you won't tell a soul 'bout me and Kankuro." The weapon specialist looked a little taken back. The medic sighed, "The only people that know in our village is Lady Hokage, Shikamaru, Kiba, Neji, Hinata, and now you. Kakashi-sensei doesn't even know and he's practically my father." Sakura took a deep breath and then let it out. "You have no idea how hard it is to have a long-term relationship with somebody when they're a fellow shinobi and keep it quiet at the same time."

Shikamaru voiced in, "But you guys make it work and your relationship is a lot healthier and better than most shinobi relationships. Plus you and Kankuro just celebrated your one year anniversary."

Sakura snorted, " 'Celebrate isn't exactly the right word I'd use. The only alone time we got was the night before we rescued Gaara and the few moments of peace on top of the Kazekage tower that Tenten saw a part of."

"I think what Shikamaru is trying to say is that you and Kankuro have something special and at such a young age. Many shinobi have to go through a life-changing or a near death experience before they admit they're in love and they love that one special person." the normally quiet Hyugga said.

Shikamaru shrugged, "What Neji said." For a few minutes, all four shinobi just stood still. Sakura was pondering what the two male shinobi said when Tenten spoke for the first time in what seemed eternity to Sakura.

"Just on curiosity; if you ever got of Kankuro's make up on you, how hard would it be to get off?"

Sakura sneered, "First of all, it's not make up; it's warrior face paint and second, it's nearly impossible to get that stuff off. When I'm ever in Suna at his house, I make him take the paint off before we do any" a blush crept up to Sakura's cheeks "before we do any _extracurricular activities_."This time it was Tenten's turn to start laughing like a maniac. A light bulb sprung in Sakura's head. "But you should hear Shikamaru and Temari when they're alone. I'm sure Jiraya could get some inspiration by watching those two."

"That happened once and it wasn't as if you and puppet boy don't do the exactly same thing _every single time _you two are together." Sakura was about to protest but she knew that if she said anything she'd only be proving the Nara genius correct. Ending on that note; Shikamaru, Tenten, and Neji left Sakura's home. But Shikamaru popped his head back in for a second and added, "By the way, there's something on your neck where your lover was _**eating**_ you." Sakura scowled. She sprinted to the bathroom hoping there was no paint on her neck. Oh, how wrong she was . . . not only was there some transfered paint on her neck, there was a bite mark.

"**KANKURO!"**

Three days later in Suna, the puppet master was cooped up in his workshop trying to fix his puppets. A little more than a few times Kankuro found himself staring at a few pictures of his girlfriend. The first picture was Sakura curled up asleep in one of Kankuro's over sized shirts in his bed. The night before Kankuro told her to 'let it out'. At first the stubborn medic stated she had no idea what he was talking about. He stood up and silently Sakura became aware that her boyfriend had an advantage five feet and at least thirty pounds. The puppeteer started a glaring contest with his stubborn pink-haired girlfriend, after a few minutes he noticed that she was starting to lose. Kankuro took her face in his hands and he leaned down so that her forehead was resting against his own. It didn't take long for Sakura to start breaking down. He laid Sakura down in the bed so that she was against his bare chest and his arms were encircled around her back. While laying in this position, Kankuro let his girlfriend cry her eyes out until she let out as much emotions as she needed to; Sasuke Uchiha and Naruto Uzamaki were who knows God where and her best friend Ino was almost on the brink of death. Shikamaru, Ino, and Sakura were on their way to the village hidden in the Sand to deliver a message to the jounin counsel when they were ambushed by some rogue ninja. They got back up from the Sand Siblings' but Ino needed a hospital ASAP. The morning after Sakura's 'let out' of emotions, Temari found her brother and his girlfriend entangled with each other in his bed (fully clothed much to her joy). She went to go find her own lover to take a picture of the puppet master and the medic but Kankuro woke and decided that Sakura deserved breakfast in bed. When he got back to his room he found Temari taking his picture of his girlfriend, a little annoyed he told his pestering sister to leave so that he could have some alone time with her. However, he had to give Temari some credit; Sakura looked very peaceful. Her cheeks weren't stained with dried tears and didn't look as if she had been crying all night. She was curled up with a pillow; Kankuro's pillow to be exact. The second picture was a very pissed off Sakura; team 10 minus Asuma and plus Sakura were on a jointed mission with the sand siblings about a year after Naruto left to go train with Jiraya. It was six months before Kankuro and Sakura started dating. Kankuro and Sakura were left alone for a few hours and Kankuro being _**Kankuro, **_decided to mess with her. The puppeteer made the grave mistake to lightly joke around about Team 7 which provoked the mini Tsunade. To protect himself, the puppet master trapped her in his Black Ant puppet. After fifteen minutes of swearing him to the clutches of Orichimaru and five minutes of unbearable silence, Kankuro let her out. Sakura basically jumped on him and tried to lecture him that Team 7 was a sore subject and the member of said Team 7 weren't just teammates. With little to no effort, Kankuro flipped their position so that he was straddling the medic and he pinned her hands above her head. This picture was taken right after.

"I don't know who I'm more worried about; you or Gaara." Kankuro recognized the voice immediately. The middle sand sibling looked to the older man.

"Probably Gaara; he comes back from the grave and can't admit that he has romantic feelings for Matsuri."

Baki chucked, "And you are down here cooped up sulking that you couldn't spend any time with your girlfriend and you spend more time looking at those two pictures than actually working on your puppets."

Kankuro made a comeback, "At least I'm trying to do something productive; all Gaara has been doing for the past three days is centered around Matsuri. Sometimes I think they're worse than Naruto and the Hyugga heiress." The 17-year old shinobi let out a sigh. "Sakura told me that Sasori gave them information that might lead them to Sasuke Uchiha."

"Don't tell me you're still jealous." The puppeteer made no hesitation to reply to his former sensei.

"I'm not jealous! I'm worried and concerned. If Sakura found the Uchiha without the intent of killing him, she's as good as gone. Plus whenever he's on the subject, she lets her emotions cloud her ability to rationalize a situation."

"She's not the same girl you met during the first chunin exams, if she was, she's be long gone by now."

"I know that." Baki couldn't help but smirk; it was during the chunin exams that Kankuro developed a crush on the pink-haired shinobi.

_Flashback_

_ It was during the month of training when Kankuro first really looked at Sakura Haruno; he was sitting in his hotel room that he shared with his siblings and sensei when he noticed the pink-haired girl from the corner from his eye. She was especially cute for a kunoichi especially with her short hair fixed. She was delivering something to an old man and his wife._

_ He spoke up, "Hey Baki," the jounin looked at the puppet master, "isn't it impossible for someone to escape the mind transfer jutsu by sheer will power?" Baki looked to where Kankuro was looking._

_ "I use to think so."_

_ "Then how is it even possible for that squirt to push the blond out of her body during their preliminary match?"_

_ "You'd have to ask her that yourself, besides girls born in the village hidden in the sand tend to have just as much bark as their bite." Temari and Kankuro snapped their heads towards their sensei._

_ "What?"_

_ Baki almost laughed, "You mean you don't remember the story the elders and the Kazekage use to tell you all the time about the red-haired leaf village kunoichi who gave birth in our village?" The two sand siblings slowly shook their head 'no'. "Well, her mother was on a mission in our village to deliver a message from the third Hokage directly to the Kazekage. All the time she was in a meeting with your father, she kept a deathly grip on her chair and she looked like she was in pain. During the last meeting -"_

_ Temari interrupted, "The Kazekage smelled blood and that's when she noticed that her chair was soaked with blood! I remember now; it was a few months after Gaara was born. A few hours later the kunoichi gave birth to twin girls, although only the younger twin survived the birth." Kankuro still looked confused._

_ "But, there's a part where you're wrong; just when the medics were about to turn the older twin's life support off, she started crying. The medics were baffled." The jounin returned his eyes to the pink-haired kunoichi on the street. "The older twin that survived is __**her**__." Kankuro's widened. Everyday for the next several week until the next part of the chunin exams; Kankuro just watched Sakura make deliveries._

_ End of Flashback _

Baki smirked, "At least Gaara doesn't spend all the day looking at a picture when he could look at the real thing.


End file.
